


five sugars and a splash of milk

by bookishandbossy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishandbossy/pseuds/bookishandbossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Fitzsimmons had tea together, and one time Fitz and Simmons did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five sugars and a splash of milk

Jemma Simmons was going to be late, and that was simply not acceptable. She blamed the barista. It was her first day working with a new lab partner and so she'd thought that she could bring them both tea, start things off the right way. If it was even possible to start things off the right way with Leopold Fitz. She'd thought that they could be friends at first, especially since they were both the youngest at the Academy, but when they first met, he'd just nodded at her and left as soon as he could, without saying a word. “He hates me,” she'd moaned to her friend Serena when they'd gotten the partner assignments. “We're going to have to communicate through notes because he won't say a word to me.”

“I'm pretty sure that he doesn't hate you,” Serena had said, giving Jemma one of those looks that was plainly meant to communicate just how young and adorable Jemma was. Everyone at the Academy gave her those kinds of looks.

“He gives me these _looks_ every time he sees me!” Jemma had protested. “He definitely hates me.” But he couldn't hate tea, she reasoned. He was British, after all. So she'd stopped by the cafe to buy two teas, only the line had been a mile long and the tea had taken forever to make and by the time she got out, she had to sprint across campus in order to make it there on time. She burst through the door, out of breath and hair falling out of its neat bun, and saw Leopold Fitz fidgeting on a lab bench, hands twisting together in his lap. When he looked up to meet her eyes, she almost thought that she saw him smile. “Good morning,” she blurted out. “Sorry that I'm late. But I brought tea!” She hoisted the cardboard tray in the air like a trophy and waited for him to say something. He stayed silent. “I didn't know what kind you liked, so I got green and black? There's sugar and milk somewhere.” She said awkwardly, producing handfuls of sugar packets and tiny containers of creamer from her jacket pockets.

“Is the barista going to burst through the door to make a citizen's arrest now?” he asked after a minute, voice a little rough, like he didn't talk much. She stared blankly at him. “For taking all the sugar?” he added. “It was, um...it was supposed to be a joke. Not a very good one. Sorry.”

“That's okay. My jokes aren't usually very good either,” Jemma offered and extended the cardboard tray to him again. “Want to join in on my crime?” 

“Might as well. It'll be harder for them to arrest two of us.” he said, only hesitating a moment before taking a cup of English Breakfast and adding five sugars and a splash of milk to it. “That was, um...that was supposed to be another joke.” He didn't say anything else for the next fifteen minutes, besides his apology when his fingers brushed hers over the lab table, but then she deliberately almost connected the two wrong wires and he shrieked high enough to break glass, spent the next ten minutes arguing with her, and didn't stop talking for the rest of the day. When they finally got kicked out of the lab by an irate janitor later that night, the tea had gone cold and he drank it anyway as he walked her back to her dorm room, insisting that this was just the way he'd been raised. She watched him walk away through the window, glancing back at her window when he thought she wasn't looking, and she couldn't help smiling. Maybe Leopold Fitz didn't hate her after all.  
***  
A year and a half later, her mother had insisted on taking them out for afternoon tea to celebrate their graduation, despite Jemma's protests that they had a rather urgent experiment to complete. Mrs. Simmons would not be deterred and so there they were, Jemma tugging at the hem of her graduation dress, Fitz looking at the nearby harpist with dread in his eyes, and her mother beaming at them both. Fitz squeezed her hand underneath the table and tapped out a message against her palm in Morse code. _If you need a distraction, I'm willing to rip off my jacket and go running through the lobby of the Ritz shouting about Scottish independence._

Jemma barely kept herself from laughing as she curled her fingers more securely around his and tapped her reply back. _Give me cake, and it won't be necessary._ She held his hand for a second longer than she should have after her message was done, only dropping it when her mother sent a pointed glance at the tea menu and another under the table. Growing up with her parents had meant a detailed series of etiquette lessons, and apparently spending every waking minute with a scruffy Scottish engineer wasn't quite up to par. She wanted to tell her mother that it had been platonic hand holding, solely for the purposes of communication, but it didn't sound quite right, even in her head.

“Do you know what you're having, Fitz?” her mother asked politely.

“Still looking,” he mumbled and shifted nervously in his chair. Fitz hadn't grown up with much, she remembered, and he was looking around the room like he was afraid he'd break something.

“Let me guess what you'll have,” she said brightly and tugged on the corner of his jacket until he was facing her, hoping to distract him. “English breakfast, with an obscene amount of sugar and a splash of milk. You'll eat all the ham sandwiches, then move on to the cheddar cheese, then the smoked salmon, and then the cucumber and cream cheese, though you'll complain about it. Then you'll eat whatever kind of cake they offer you, especially if it's toffee apple crumble and you'll finish by attempting to steal at least half of my cake too. Unless it's Victoria sponge.”

“You're entirely too brilliant for your own good,” he teased. “Let me try with you?” Fitz shut his eyes, concentrating, and screwed up his mouth in a pout that managed to be adorable and ridiculous at the same time. “You're going to have peppermint tea, because you drank three cups of Darjeeling this morning and you don't want any more caffeine. Then you're going to have a scone, with obscene amounts of butter and jam, and a piece of carrot cake. Maybe some chocolate cake, if you're feeling particularly adventurous. So...”

“Right again, Dr. Fitz.” She beamed up at him, noticing how he'd finally stopped fidgeting in his chair, his nervousness gone.

“I'm always right.” he said smugly.

“What about last April?” she asked, demurely twirling a curl around her finger and sending him a pointed glance through her lashes. “I seem to remember someone saying that we couldn't possibly get in trouble for using the Bunsen burners to make giant s'mores in the middle of the night.”

“I...um...” Fitz gulped audibly. Odd. That entire night had been odd when she thought about it. She'd fallen asleep curled on top of him, sleepy from sugar and the bottle of wine they'd split, and when they'd woken up in the morning, she'd leaped off of him so quickly that she'd tripped over her own shoelaces. Jemma changed the subject quickly and Fitz relaxed back into his chair, teasing her, telling silly stories about their projects at the Academy, and even smiling at her mother once or twice.

When he'd left the table for a few minutes to call his family, her mother had leaned across the table and said that he was a very nice boy, with a confiding smile that bordered on a smirk.

“Fitz and I are just friends,” Jemma protested. “You met one of my boyfriends, Mum, remember? Jason, the one from Operations?”

“Whatever you say, Jemma. Whatever you say.”  
***  
Her bedroom was far too bright and her head was pounding and she needed tea and...there was an arm looped around her waist. Her very naked waist. Bits of last night were coming back to her, in a hazy blur. She'd gone out with some coworkers from Sci-Ops, in a lacy dress and mile-high heels, and there had been round after round of those pink drinks, and kissing in a dark corner. She must have brought whoever she was kissing back here—she should have been delighted. But as she silently wriggled out from underneath the very muscular arm around her waist and put on her robe, Jemma couldn't help feeling a tinge of disappointment as she saw the unfamiliar face sleeping beside her.

_You were hoping it was Fitz,_ a traitorous voice whispered. Jemma resolutely ignored the voice and yanked the fluffy blue belt of her robe even tighter. So what if she had come up with a few complicated scenarios where sleeping with her lab partner wouldn't be a complete violation of Section 17? Involving moderate amounts of alcohol, an elaborate set of undercover identities if SHIELD ever let them go into the field, or an illegal sex pollen being half-accidentally released in the lab? As long as she never actually acted on one of those scenarios, there'd be nothing to worry about. No rejection, no loss, no chance of losing her job, no disapproving lectures (besides the ones she and Fitz already got). It was scientific curiosity, she reminded herself. A thought experiment. A--

“Good morning, Jemma.” Speak of the devil. She spun to see a sleepy Fitz sitting at the table, wearing a wrinkled Iron Man t-shirt and ridiculous tartan boxers and adding far too much sugar to his tea.

“Good morning,” she said, far too loudly, and winced at the sound of her own voice. “What time did I get back last night?”

“Three am, I think.”

“Oh _god_. Sorry. Was I too loud? Did I wake you up?” she asked anxiously.

“No, it was actually all very quiet.” He was staring intently at the kitchen table, like he'd never seen anything so fascinating, and turning pink from the bottom of his neck to the tips of his ears. “I was awake anyway, waiting for you.”

“Oh.” Then she remembered a little bit more of the night before—sitting on her bed nearly naked and glaring at the guy she'd brought home with her, flopping back on her pillows to face the wall and sulk while he perched on the edge of her bed awkwardly—and then she was blushing too. “We didn't—he'd, um, he'd had too much to drink and he couldn't, um...”

“I guess symmetrical faces aren't everything, then.” Now he just sounded smug. “Just because he couldn't do that doesn't mean he couldn't do anything else.”

“ _Leopold Fitz!_ ” she squeaked. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“Right. Sorry. Tea?” He pushed the teapot towards her. Her mug, the one emblazoned with the molecular structure of caffeine, was already sitting on the table and he'd pulled the plate of lemon slices out already, even though he never took his tea with lemon. “I plugged the waffle maker in already, and there's strawberries in the fridge,” he added. She mumbled a thank you and poured herself tea, curling her legs underneath her in her spot at the kitchen table—when had it become her spot? And when had Fitz started finding her mug and knowing that she liked to make waffles on Sunday mornings? (Pancakes were for Saturdays.) When had they gotten so completely wrapped up in each other's lives?

Then she heard a muffled thump from her bedroom and a deep male voice calling her name, and she seriously contemplated hiding under the kitchen table. After last night, and the incredibly awkward moment when he'd announced that the trains had stopped running and asked if he could stay anyway, then tried to make her be the little spoon, the thought of the morning after made Jemma want to drown herself in her tea mug. The guy—Danny, that was his name—called her name again and Jemma quietly groaned. Then she glanced over at Fitz, still adding sugar to his tea, and the solution hit her. “Fitz, kiss me,” she hissed. 

“Sorry?” He nearly dropped his tea when he heard her, snatching it out of the air a second before it hit the ground and spilling tea all over his shirt in the process.

“Pretend that you're my boyfriend or something. I need to get him out of here as soon as possible,” Jemma explained. “Because otherwise there'll be male posturing and offers to make it up to me, and repair his wounded male pride--”

“Can't you just tell him that you're not interested?” Fitz protested weakly. “This sounds far too complicated and statistically more complicated--” He didn't get to finish his sentence because as the door to Jemma's room swung open, revealing a shirtless specialist, Jemma climbed onto his lap and started kissing him desperately. She wound her hands through his curls, curling one around the back of his neck so he wouldn't move and give her away, and pressed her mouth against his with a fierceness that made his sound of surprise turn into a groan. As she moved one hand lower to slide beneath his shirt and up his back, she nipped at his mouth, remembering his response to a girl who did that back in the Boiler Room, at the Academy. (Why did she even remember that?) At that, Fitz finally melted into her, slipping one arm around her waist to pull her more firmly against him and kissing her back properly. His tongue slid over her lower lip and then into her mouth, and she sighed softly against him, wondering, with more than a hint of jealousy, who she had to thank for teaching him to kiss. He tasted of Earl Grey and sugar and she tugged on his curls, hoping to pull him even closer. In the doorway, Jemma actually heard the specialist's jaw drop open. 

Fitz moved down to kiss along her neck, sucking gently at her pulse, and tilting her head back, she darted a glance over at Danny, the specialist. (Or was it David?) He looked shocked, but he wasn't showing any sign of leaving and Jemma decided it was time to raise the stakes. “You forgive me, darling? Really?” she gasped and, when Fitz flicked his eyes up at her in alarm, mouthed “Just go with it” to him.

“Of course, I do,” Fitz said tentatively, then, when she nodded, “Of course, I do...baby. I shouldn't have let you go last night, but we were both so angry and--” Jemma kissed him before they had to make up any more of a cover story and, without really thinking about it, rolled her hips against his. Fitz moaned, loudly enough that it echoed off the walls, and arched up against her. _Well._ That was... _something_. 

He pressed a line of kisses along her jawline and then leaned up to whisper in her ear. “He's putting his clothes on, but he isn't leaving yet. Why isn't he leaving?” Jemma huffed in impatience—clearly, she'd have to go even further.

“Yes,” she cried “Yes! Take me, you great...Scottish...stallion of a man. Take me right here and now!” The specialist fled, letting the door slam shut behind him, and it took Jemma a moment to remember she wasn't supposed to be sitting on Fitz's lap. “Thank you,” she stammered, . “I, um...I owe you one.”

“No problem,” he said after a moment. That was when she realized that they were still staring at each others' mouths and that, instead of moving away, she seemed to have inched closer to him while she was talking. 

“Right. Well. I'm, er, going to...going to...shower! I'll see you later,” Jemma blurted out and leaped off his lap, heading for her room before she could do something she'd regret.  
***  
It was their first day on the Bus, with new people and a new lab and a new, amazing, terrifying world spread out before them. He was grumbling about the fact that she wouldn't let him call their new device the night-night gun as she came down from the kitchen, carrying a paper cup of tea in each hand, and felt a sudden, inexplicable rush of affection watching him talk to his gadgets. “I brought tea. And obscene amounts of sugar for you,” she announced.

“Thanks,” he said, turning to look at her. “Are you sure that they won't let us have a kettle down here? If we can't get a fish tank, we deserve to have easy access to food.”

“I bet that you've already hidden snacks in half the cupboards.” Jemma rolled her eyes at him affectionately. 

“Desperate times call for desperate measures. A _flying_ lab...” He shuddered, then gave her hopeful puppy dog eyes. “This is supposed to be the bit where you fuss over me and comfort me, because a flying--”

“It's an adventure, Fitz.” But she put her tea down and grabbed both his hands in hers anyway. “You know that I wouldn't have gone without you, right? I can't—I can't imagine ever working without you, even having a life without you. It's going to be good, I promise. We're going to see things that no one else has seen and come up with new inventions and meet new people. We might even meet an alien,” she breathed.

“I know, Simmons. I know. You don't have to bring up the alien argument again,” he teased. “Besides, your dad would kill me if he knew I'd let you go into the field alone. This'll be good for us, yeah?” He let her hand go to grab his cup, extending it towards her in a toast. “To us?"

“To us,” she agreed and tapped her cup against his.  
***  
They were in San Juan and they were standing over the remains of an alien city and they were barely talking. Jemma came back into the temple to see him crouching by the airshaft, peering down it like he was hoping that Mack would miraculously return. She took a step towards him, then another, and took a deep breath. _You can do this._

“Hey,” she said it much too fast and much too loud, so the sound bounced around the watchtower's walls, but she said it.

“Hi,” he rose out of his crouch to meet her and noticed what she was holding. “I didn't know that they sold tea in the tropics.”

“I had to pay an outrageous bribe. Want to join in on my crime?” She held the cup out towards him.

“Might as well. It'll—It'll be harder for them to arrest two of us.” He smiled faintly at her and she wanted to cry and laugh and shout at him and throw her arms around him all at the same time. But they were in the middle of a mission, surrounded by teammates and so all she could do was smile back and hand him the cup and hope that it said everything she couldn't.

And when he sipped at it—five sugars and a splash of milk—and looked back up at her, she thought that maybe—just maybe—he knew what she was trying to say. Maybe—just maybe—they were going to be okay.


End file.
